Childhood

“Divorce?” chuckled Eydan, “What a silly thing for a boy your age to be worried about. You’re 11.”

Bhoural’s brow, chiseled and coated with iron, furrowed at Eydan’s dismissiveness. He already resented how fast his tutor strode through the Bursual streets, how hard his legs toiled to keep up with the tap, tap, tap of Eydan’s metal staff on the packed dirt. Eydan was teaching Bhoural medicine. Today, the master and student were on a field trip in their home city of Bursual.

“It really happened,” objected Bhoural, “In my dream, I got divorced. What if you got divorced in Dreamland?”

“I wouldn’t get willingly married,” snickered Eydan, flashing a smile with his filed teeth, “I’ve no interest in marriage, Young Master, not since I took up the arcane. It’s a common side effect of developing as a wizard, chemical castration.”

“Castration? Does that make you cast spells better?” asked Bhoural

“Uhh,” chuckled Eydan, “Anyway, how’d you figure you were getting a divorce? Was there paperwork? Tense proceedings between man and betrothed in a law office?”

“No. We were in a big tent. Like at the wedding for my uncle.”

“Mhm,” mused Eydan quietly.

“And it was time for the first dance, so I went up with my wife to the big pole in the middle, and then a song started playing, and we started dancing.”

“What song?”

Bhoural thought for a little bit, “I don’t remember.”

“Well, I’m indisposed to comment on the music taste in Dreamland then. What then? Did you dance?”

“Er, no. She just looked at me funny for a little bit, and the music stopped, and then she whispered… I don’t remember what. But then the divorce happened.”

“And then you woke up clammy and perspiration-covered?” snickered Eydan.

“No” whined Bhoural defensively, “Then there were other dreams. I don’t remember those, though.”

“Riveting,” chirped Eydan, and a bit of silence ensued.

Bhoural and Eydan were walking through Marham Bazaar, probably the cutest and quaintest market in the million-strong metropolis of Bursual. The bazaar was set in a plaza, with colorful rugs and tarps covering the various stands that were strewn about. There was a fountain with a sandstone obelisk shooting out from its center; some people washed in it, some children played in it. Foodstuffs were the main merchandise here, with aurochs jerky, salted monster tripe, and apples acquired and sold locally giving off a very earthy and pungent aroma. More excitingly, there were exotic imports from down the river: dates, spices, and every manner of dried jungle fruit from the south. Most of the jerky vendors were titans who spoke Northern, the language of the Floru Steppe. Most of the fruit vendors were humans who spoke Balthi, the language of the Balthian Autocracy. The bazaar was a chorus of people soliciting buyers in a mess of different languages.

“Well, what’s my dream mean?” roared Bhoural in frustration, “You’re always saying that everything that happens in dreams really happens in Dreamland, why’d it happen to me?”

“Because dreams are chaos,” cooed Eydan, “Dreams have cause and effect, but seldom meaningful cause and effect, Young Master. Consider the forces that bring a single wave to crest in a great ocean. These are too many and too inconsequential to merit study from brains like yours or mine. Think of this dream as a stray and fickle draft on your ankle: momentarily shock-inducing but trivial.”

More silence. More ruckus from the market. Bhoural pouted.

“What?” asked Eydan, “Did you hope this dream would be prophetic?”

“A little,” said Bhoural, “it’d have been cool.”

“Mmm. Account for your wishes carefully, Young Master.” The two halted abruptly, “Ah, behold: your lesson for today.” The two stood along a clear avenue which shot straight to Bursual’s heart. The sheer ramparts of the old Khatru city of Bursual rose from the flat ground at the city center. The great fortress’ mouth hearkened to the face of a roaring, flaming fiend. A vast, frowning gate opened into the fortress’ nethers, and rather than darkness, a great brightness and burning corruscated off the dark stone walls within, a fire in the belly.

But between the citadel and the bazaar, there was a silver statue of a tall and very proudly built woman. Her rippling, top-heavy physique suggested she was a soldier-type titan, just like Bhoural was. The statue itself was life sized, depicting the woman at an imposing 7 feet. She had a wicked grin, a typically masculine visage, and was flexing her bicep.

“Do you recognize her?” asked Eydan

Bhoural’s face lit up. “Yeah! That’s Qerozz.” Everybody in Bursual knew Qerozz.

“Do you know what she did to merit that statue?”

“Errr, no.”

Eydan nodded smugly, “Well, here we have the central necessity of today’s lesson.”

Bhoural clasped his chin in confusion, “What’s Qerozz got to do with being a doctor?”

Eydan scoffed subtly, “It’s got everything to do with you getting educated. Doctors are educated. From that follows our being here today.”

Eydan cleared his throat. “At Qerozz’s humble birth, Bursual was but the fortress you see behind the statue. In those days, titans other Northerners were nearly universally allied with Evil, and Qerozz was no different. She acquired the blessing of the Goddess Balthia fairly early in her life, which marked as an adventurer. Normally, she’d have gotten to amassing a dark army and serving the likes of the God Chcurex in pursuit of world destruction. But instead of choosing to be a villain, Qerozz chose to be a hero. She adventured against evil, killed the God Paaz, reached level 23, and became the strongest woman in history.”

Bhoural’s memory was suddenly jogged with odds-and-ends of historical nonfiction: “And then she became the first duchess of Bursual?”

Eydan pursed his lips and sighed. “Yes, and, frankly, there’s the rub. I wish she hadn’t.”

Bhoural was very confused by this proposition. “But wouldn’t all the titans still be Evil without her? Serving Chcurex instead of Good gods?”

Eydan tutted his head back and forth, searching for the right words, making his ponytail sway. Eydan was a Titan, and he also had an iron encrusted, protruding forehead. Specifically, he was an officer-type titan, which meant that normally he would have very large, fuzzy, and crest-like sideburns. Instead, he’d shaved these off, leaving only a sort of dorky looking undercut atop his had. “Were it so simple that the triumph over Evil implied the ascent of Good. The problem was that of course Qerozz would be made the Duchess of a new Floru steppe. She’d saved it from oblivion, and was therefore most popular, within and without the North. Yet what Qerozz possessed formidably in strength, she lacked in intelligence. Courtiers from the Balthian Autocracy came to insidiously advise Qerozz in setting up the Duchy of Bursual. She proved most distractible with riches and worship from the masses. All the while, they built the Duchy of Bursual as a client state of the Balthian Autocracy.”

“Client state?” that was a confusing word for Bhoural. He thought a client was someone who got their hair done by a hairdresser.

“Uh, nevermind that,” replied Eydan, “Point being: if someone truly qualified in matters of state had been made first duchess of Bursual, that could have been the start of something really new and really special. But Herocracy is the way of the world. So we’re stuck with…” Eydan gestured all around vaguely, “This. That’s what I want you to focus on when we visit the Qerozz memorial museum. Before then, though.” Eydan glided over to a little corner of Marham Bazaar, where the crisp scent of produce hung in the air. Bhoural scrambled over. “Snacktime,” declared Eydan. “What shall be your proverbial poison, young master?”

“Passion fruit, please.” said Bhoural, watching Eydan fumble with his coinbag to pay the fruitier. Bhoural looked ahead, his gaze landing upon a human boy, about his age, with a heart shaped spot of vitiligo on his cheek.

“You’re goings grow up to do what?” Asked Bhoural in broken Balthi.

“What? Pardon?” muttered the boy in reply.

Bhoural put his thumb on his chest proudly, “I’m doctor-goings when grow up.”

“Uh, Doctor?”

“Yes. Doctor. surgeon’s toolings and proscriptions. healing times. And you?”

Before the boy could answer, the fruit vendor kicked the boy gently in the foot. Bhoural could see the vendor give a mean glare at the youngster. Fear overtook him, and he shook his head ‘no’ at Bhoural frantically..

“No charge for you, sir,” the vendor bleated at Eydan.

Eydan resolutely presented him with 2 coins. “I insist.” The vendor discreetly took the cash, and everybody parted wordlessly.

“Did you see that?” asked Bhoural.

“Yes,” replied Eydan, “That was uh… that was a lesson for a different day. ”

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A month later, Bhoural sat on a granite curb, overlooking the main courtyard of Taymaf Temple. The curb was warm. The sun’s rays  been baking the stone all day, but the covered arcades that surrounded the courtyard meant that Bhoural’s upper body was shaded and cool. In the courtyard’s center was a stepwell with staircases delving into the temple’s main hall underground. At the stepwell’s center, a fountain discharged a geyser 10 meters into the air, sprinkling the incoming congregants with holy water for ablution. This was a typical feature of Qashap like Taymaf Temple. There were aromatic gum trees dotting the courtyard, smelling subtly of vanilla, irrigated by runoff from the big geyser collected in little channels. A tabby brushed by Bhoural as it made way for the stepwell. Mendicants and knights, some of which had just warped from the holy city of Parn, wailed in hymns in the Balvird language:

Mahash bad-chkaram (May his name be extolled)

Moghada saz-anoukhdat (He who makes saints of sinners)

Zolat padha-beiyat (He who makes justice of iniquity)

Naheib rokhan-dheilaba (He who is in death, more alive than ever)

Bahousha ul-ganon, Janxan (May his name carry the Law, Janxan)

Janxan. He was the deity of the Floru Steppe North, provided you did not worship a patently Evil deity like Chcurex. Bhoural was dropped off by Eydan at the temple to receive religious training that Eydan could not provide. The idea was that if Bhoural wanted to be a doctor, it behooved him to learn some healing magic, and the most smiled-upon way of learning that magic was by becoming a priest of Janxan. He’d just spent 3 hours in a very boring religious seminar here at the Temple. The holy text commentaries he’d been lectured on were supposed to be ‘instrumental’ to developing a divine connection to Janxan. Bhoural spent most of that time daydreaming of all the phenomenal cosmic power he’d be able to wield when he became a priest, like levitating out of the seminary to do something more interesting.

There were children playing in the courtyard. Bhoural recognized a human among a gaggle of boys kicking a vinyl soccer ball around, he had a little spot of vitiligo on his cheek. When the boy was finished playing, Bhoural walked up and intercepted him.

“Boy hello!” said Bhoural in broken Balthi, causing the youngster to jump. “Me do you seeing at place-market.”

“Good lord, speak in Balvird!” hushed the boy in the language, “Your Balthi is awful.”

“Oh, I thought you could only speak in Balthi,” said Bhoural in perfect Balvird. It was odd. Bhoural could speak Northern, Attic Greek, and Balvird phenomenally, but his tongue disagreed with Balthi. Maybe his mind only had space for 3 languages? “I wanted to talk to you. What did you wanna be when you grow up?”

It took several seconds for the boy to process that question. “Be? What do I wanna be? What the hell do you mean?”

“Like for a job,” chirped Bhoural, “I wanna be a doctor. Do you wanna be a doctor?”

“I don’t get to pick that,” scoffed the boy. “You get to pick that.”

Bhoural was only getting more confused. “Why?”

“Because I’m your serf,”  hissed the boy through his teeth, “You decide what I do. Because of you, I have to stay in this city my whole life.” Bhoural could tell the boy was trying hard not to make a scene.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“How do you know?”

“It’s right here,” the boy grabbed Bhoural’s shirt collar and pried off a little pin. There was a symbol of a hyena’s head on it, colored red. The boy put that symbol next to a pin that was on his collar, identical to Bhoural’s, only blue colored. “This one means you own the Uslagen fief. This one means I’m a serf of the Uslagen fief. That means,” the boy searched for the right word, “This blue pin. It’s like a branding mark. For a horse.”

Bhoural thought he recognized the problem. He came up with a brilliant solution: “Okay. Then if you’re like my horse, I command you to go to school, and find out what you want to do when you grow up. Giddy up,” Bhoural smiled. He thought the ‘giddy up’ was a nice touch.

The boy gasped and then discreetly made a rude gesture at Bhoural. Had Bhoural said the wrong thing? In a few seconds, the boy paced off, afright of something.

It was at this point that Eydan arrived, his metal staff tapping on the granite flooring. “Ahoy-hoy, young master. I trust seminary was intellectually stimulating?”

“Actually I have a question I wanna ask,” said Bhoural.

Eydan chuckled, “My profession is attending to just that.”

Bhoural pointed at the boy with vitiligo in the far side of the courtyard. Bhoural must have scared the boy even more, because when he caught sight of Bhoural pointing at him with Eydan nearby, he booked it out of the courtyard. “What’s a serf?”

Eydan’s expression sunk in a way that Bhoural had never seen. “One who is bound to a plot of land. They are obliged to work that plot of land for their lord, and should any danger come unto that serf, the lord is obliged to protect them. At least in theory.”

A grim realization dawned upon Bhoural. He looked off into the crowd. He noticed that the majority of people in the crowd had little blue pins of all designs on their clothes. “Are all these people serfs?” he realized.

“No. Only the majority of those people. Some among them are lucky: freemen. Some very lucky people get Balthia’s blessing, and go on to become nobles.”

“Well how’s that fair?” asked Bhoural, “How’s it okay for people to not get to pick what they do with their whole life? Who would want to be a serf?”

“Ah, but it is fair,” cracked Eydan sarcastically. “Consider, young master; any one of these people could be a hero. Any one of these people could wake up one day to find their families massacred or their houses annihilated by a necromancer. At that point they’d be given Balthia’s blessing by fate, and if they beat the bad guy, then by Balthia’s providence, they have earned their noble title, their mandate to rule the world . But not everybody can be a savior. Most people need to be the ones getting saved. And in all the epics of heroes and dungeons and dragons and knights and armor… the commoners are serfs. There are no heroic tales about the fields of wheat outside of the castle getting tilled by free citizens. In none of those stories do the peasants posess running water or schools or the wealth to cure their chronic illness. And Balthia’s will is that the world be heroic. That it be feudal. Because obviously feudalism is the most heroic form of government.”

Bhoural clutched his head. He didn’t know what feudalism meant, but it sounded awful. He felt like a moron for having never picked up on this before. He assumed that everybody lived in a villa just like his, that everybody got to learn what they wanted, and that bondage was something that only villains enforced. But apparently his own father had serfs.

“Recall how I mentioned the rub with Qerozz was that she sided with the Balthian Autocracy? The supposed Good guys? This is what I meant. Serfdom is a Balthian import.”

Bhoural sighed. “I wanna go home.”

“Let’s be off, then,” replied Eydan, taking Bhoural’s hand and walking him quickly back to the villa.

Bhoural couldn’t believe he’d told that young boy to ‘Giddy up’.

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A week later, Bhoural was practicing on horseback. He was riding in a vast corral lined with sand. Eydan was watching and instructing him along the enclosure’s wooden fence. The cloud cover was oppressive, but it was not so overcast that the city of Bursual was hidden in the distance, about a dozen klicks away. Cicadas whined, they were clinging to the various oak trees of the Uslagen ranch. There was a handsome, green-painted barn for the Uslagen horses, hidden behind all the oak trees. All Bhoural could think about were the little blue pins on the ranch-hands’ clothing… and the dumpy dormitories all the ranch-hands stayed in not too far away. Once Bhoural had noticed the little details of the serf lifestyle, he couldn’t stop noticing them.

Bhoural slowed down next to Eydan. He dismounted. “How’d I do?” He asked.

“You get passing marks for civilian riding,” replied Eydan, “You can clearly direct the animal. It’s good enough for taking the beast along peaceful roads. Let’s call this bout of physical education concluded. Bring the horse into the barn and let’s work on your maths.”

Civilian. Bhoural was suddenly reminded that he wasn’t alone in the corral. Across the way was his older brother, Eryl. He was dressed in the family armor, mounted on a handsome, all white charger, clad in the barding and colors of house Uslagen. He had a lance in his hand, and he was tilting against targets. Exactly opposite from where Eydan stood, Bhoural’s father barked instructions at Eryl with the gusto of a sports coach. His father was very handsome, like all soldier-type titans were, even 20 meters away you could see his extremely strong and chiseled jawline.

“Did my dad have to fight to become a noble?” Asked Bhoural.

“Aye,” replied Eydan. “I believe he got his adventurer’s mark at around 15 years of age. He’s killed 17 steppe warlords in his career, goceps. Each were frothing, murderous fanatics of the God Chcurex, and I doubt one man among them has been missed. You come from a modestly long line of gocep-slayers.”

Bhoural had inklings of all of this, but suddenly a serious question shot through his head. “I’m not gonna  have to do that, am I?”

Eydan chuckled. “Bhoural. Look at the way I’ve taught you to ride a horse. Look at how your father is teaching Eryl to ride a horse. Q.E.D.”

Suddenly it made a lot of sense to Bhoural why father spent all his time with Eryl and Eryl only. But this raised a different question. “Does that mean Eryl is going to spend all his time killing goceps?”

“See, here’s the wonder of the Uslagen family. Eryl’s training is, above all, a formality. Your father’s career was so fruitful, so efficient, that virtually no one who wishes the Uslagens extermination lives. There’s so little risk of anybody having to do any fighting, that you have the privilege of studying to become a doctor instead of making like Eryl over there. It’s just marvelous for you. And it’s just marvelous for me, because you’ve given me a career where I don’t have to be pigeonholed into adventuring. I get to teach you instead.” Eydan smiled assuredly.

Bhoural squinted suspiciously at Eydan. “That’s why you’re my tutor?”

“Ah,” Eydan batted his eyes, clearly flustered, “No. I’m tutoring you because I’ve got the utmost interest in your future as a doctor. I think you’re brilliant, and I believe the world deserves more soldier titans in professions besides skull cracking or warmongering. I certainly don’t know any other soldiers who could learn languages as quickly as you do. The freedom from Balthia’s blessing is just a bonus. A good bonus.” Eydan chuckled.

Bhoural shook his head. Something felt cowardly about not being able to become an adventurer. “So I’m just not allowed to make as big of a difference in the world as Eryl?”

“No! No. Absolutely not,” Eydan knelt next to this student for effect. Bhoural could sense that one of Eydan’s teachable moments was at hand. “You’re not going to grow up to be a hero. And you’re definitely not going to grow up to be a serf. But you’re going to grow up to save lives, you’re going to be a doctor. You just won’t save lives like your father. You’ll save lives in little ways.”

Bhoural nodded, but it all sat wrong with him still. Why did people need to be saved? Most of all…

“You said it was unlikely that my brother would have to fight anyone.”

“That I did,” replied Eydan.

“So that means there’s a chance we’ll have to fight?”

“Hmph. I mean, there’s Url-Rafam, but he’s the enemy of all the Bursual nobles, not your father specifically. Anyway, we have learning to do.”

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“Do I need to learn all of these?” asked Bhoural about a day later at the Uslagen villa, gazing over a mess of cut-out symbols and scribbled names laid out on the study table. “Half of these gods, nobody even worships. Don’t I only need to know Janxan?”

“No,” replied Eydan, “Recall the goal here: education. An educated mind could name all the gods here.”

Bhoural sighed at all the paper. “I dunno where to start.”

“Start with the easy ones. Process of elimination.”

Bhoural nodded and searched for… the “X” with little gems in its poles, matching it to the word  “Janxan/Vanquisher’s Faith”.

Eydan chuckled. “The young master has a pulse.”

Then Bhoural grabbed a symbol that resembled a gout of flames with an ogre-ish face scribbled in its center and matched it to “Chcurex”.

“Another gimme,” said Eydan. “Chcurex.”

After some deliberation, Bhoural matched the clover to the name “Wyzzyx”.

“Him you should know intimately, we went over Wyzzyx in our recapitulation. Why’d you hesitate?”

“I just dunno why such an Evil god would pick a clover as his symbol.”

“Because he thinks it’s cute. Everything is cheap to Wyzzyx. Life, companionship, sincerity, that clover’s a little ‘Ooo, look at me, I killed 90% of the world population, ain’t I a stinker?’ I... Sorry Eydan, I just went to Hudang with a guy who was a crypto-believer in Wyzzyx. I know how he eats people inside-and-out.”

The lingering, awkward silence was interrupted just outside the study’s window, by the opening of the courtyard gates and the hurried arrival of a valet on horseback into the villa courtyard. The valet yelled something quickly and inaudibly to the house retainers before rushing inside.

“Did you hear that?’

“Eh?” asked Eydan.

“What the guard was saying?”

“Oh, it’s trifling, probably, focus on the practicum.”

Bhoural did so for about five minutes. Then, through the door that opened to the study from the hallway, he saw others running to the villa’s nucleus. There went the house waitstaff, several retainers, even Eryl. The atmosphere became very anxious

“Uh-oh,” said Eydan curtly.

Bhoural dashed out of the study and hurried towards the commotion. Eydan followed. The entire household, a collection of at least 3 dozen people, had concentrated in the main living room, at the front of the doors of Father’s main study. A muffled and caustic conversation unfolded behind those doors, with the valet and Father yelling at eachother. The house’s head guard, Nephshan, stood before the doors, separating everyone from the conversation within.

Bhoural wracked his brain for what the problem could be, and as he assessed the situation, he realized his mother was nowhere to be found in the crowd. Bhoural remembered suddenly that she’d been on a trip, a trip that father had some very serious safety concerns about.

The muffled quarreling halted. Then the doors open, out came the valet, but more importantly, Father. His face was sterner than ever. He surveyed the living room. “My sons,” he called out, “come forward.”

Bhoural and Eryl approached their father. “Put out your right hands, both of you,” said father, drawing his belt-dagger. Bhoural’s right hand trembled as it extended. The men of the Uslagen house were about to draw blood to enter a pact of revenge.

Father drew his right hand. His palm had many overlaid scars, and he drew fresh blood from it with the curved dagger. “Yesterday, your mother was slain by the dogs of Url-Rafam, that gocep bastard has taken her life. Today you become men, and we will not stop until the blood feud is paid. If I die…” Father pierced Eryl’s right palm, “...Eryl leads. If Eryl dies-”

“But I want to be a Doctor!” cried Bhoural, “You said I wouldn’t have to fight, daddy!”

“Do not cry!” seethed Father in reply, “Look at me! Do not drop a single tear!” Bhoural, transfixed on his father, must have sucked the beading tears back. “I do not cry,” hissed Father, “You do not cry. No man cries for the lost.” Bhoural had never seen his father so monstrous and spasming in all his youth. “...If Eryl dies, Bhoural leads. Does our entourage swear to join us?”

And in the raised fists and affirmative uproar, Eydan found himself readying to join the fight.

“Then we leave in an hour.” Father’s sweeping and frantic gestures conveyed a great urgency, “We ride south to take shelter among whomever shall give quarter. My envoy shall leave now to hunt down our new stronghold. The path to the South is safest.”

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Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit, and Shit a million times more, thought Eydan, riding a courser through the embers of the torched Uslagen encampment. He had been keeping watch by the main road by in a pocket dimension, ready to alert the group to the sound of beating hooves. Somehow, the attack came from where Eydan wasn’t looking; Rafam’s men were insane enough to charge down a 50 degree hill in the moor where the men were stationed. Eydan only realized this when a contingent of lancers that definetely weren’t Uslagen’s departed out from the camp, along the road.

This was the end. He’d be beheaded for incompetence, for failing to warn camp, yet here he was, rushing in to assess the damage Url-Rafam had done to his allies. Why am I doing this? He thought to himself, This is the perfect time to desert, everybody’s likely died by now, but then…

And before Eydan could finish the thought, he came upon some good news and bad news. The good news: most of the horses were piled at the hill’s bottom. If their riders weren’t in their saddles, they were nearby, struck down by footmen. The other good news was that his boss was dead, no beheading for-

Wait.

That was the bad news. Father Uslagen was halfway out of his tent, struck down in a pool of blood. The family was beheaded, and there laid the corpses of Eryl. That left, as the next successor…

Eydan dismounted and looked everywhere he could. He bellowed: “Bhoural?”

“Eydan?” came shrieking off in the distance.

Eydan rushed towards the voice.

When Eydan came upon Bhoural, there laid his student’s scrawny silhouette, the coruscating rays of divine providence firing off of him like sparks from a firecracker. In his hands was a bloody sword. Before him were the bodies of a dozen men, all twice his size. Bhoural was twitching like a rabid animal.

“Bhoural.” murmured Eydan, watching his student slowly turn to face him in lucidity, the youngster’s eyes milky and yellow from the casting of divine favor.

“What happened, Eydan?” Bhoural asked.

Eydan had to use every ounce of volition in his body to creep towards his student, extend his hand, and cast it: detect adventurer. The spell’s magic hummed for a little bit.

Positive. Bhoural had earned the mark. Now he was an adventurer.

A collection of Uslagen family guards cried triumphantly from behind. The sudden cheering and enclosure of the duo by zealous and triumphant soldiers, Eydan’s shock curdled into a horrified frown. He cast the spell on himself.

“Eydan?” Bhoural’s sword clattered onto the ground, “What’s wrong?”

Positive. Eydan had earned the mark. Now, he was an adventurer.

Eydan grasped his student and bawled like he had never bawled before. Though, Bhoural couldn’t hear it. All he could hear and see was the joy of his father’s men before him.